


The Stick Dance

by donutsweeper



Series: Pashahads verse [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Stargate Atlantis, Torchwood
Genre: Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsweeper/pseuds/donutsweeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a good leader needs to let his team fix things for themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stick Dance

Jack lounged in the doorway watching Teyla do away with yet another soldier’s unfortunate belief that a woman, especially an alien woman, couldn’t be a good fighter. He laughed at the look of pain and disillusionment on the young man’s face as he limped away.

“Thus endeth the lesson, eh Teyla?” 

“Captain!” Her eyes sparkled when she saw him. “Do you wish to spar?”

“That one didn’t give you enough of a workout?” he asked, slipping out of his shoes and socks. Looking up he caught the slight wrinkle of her nose and laughed. “Guess not.” Once barefoot he picked up his own set of fighting sticks, twirling them in his hands before giving her a slight bow.

Jack was a very different man when sparring. Gone were the flirtatious overtures, the leering smile, the twinkling eyes; he was serious. Teyla called it his ‘warrior-mode’ once and she was right. He hadn’t had to worry about protecting his own life in combat in quite some time, but his teammates depended on him and he was not about to let them down.

As always, their sparring session drew quite the crowd. The two of them moved like they were in an elaborate ballet of parries and thrusts. Their sticks flew at each other, whipping about at dangerous speeds; if they hadn’t been so evenly matched it would have been insanely dangerous, if not out right deadly. 

The dance ended with an abrupt crack, as Jack hit one of Teyla’s sticks at just the right, or in this case, wrong angle, causing it to crack and break. She cried out with a startled, “Oh,” as it fell from her hand, the two pieces landing at her feet.

“Teyla? Did I hurt you?” He tossed his own sticks to the side and bent down to pick up her broken one. 

“No, I am uninjured,” she replied softly, slightly out of breath, with a touch of sadness to her voice.

“I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to break it.”

“It is all right, Captain.” Reaching out she stroked the broken stick in his hand before she began to walk towards the door. He reached out to touch her shoulder and stop her for a moment.

“Still friends?” he asked lightly, a worried smile on his face.

“Of course,” she responded, touching her forehead to his for a moment before turning and quickly walking off down the hall.

Jack just stood there, watching her go, and sighed sadly.

It wasn’t until three days later that Sheppard realized Jack was up to something. He’d heard about the sparring session and how it ended in Teyla’s fighting stick being broken within minutes of it happening. The story of that fight had flown through the Atlantis grapevine with the kind of ridiculous speed that would put any gossip to shame. But it took some time for Sheppard to realize that Jack’s unscheduled trips to the mainland and surreptitious behavior was more than Jack just being Jack, but that there was some sort of purpose behind it.

“So,” Sheppard began, finally confronting the other man in an abandoned storage room, “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Jack looked up, not seeming to be surprised that Sheppard had both tracked him down and was confronting him. “I broke one of Teyla’s fighting sticks,” he explained, before going back to the task on hand. 

“Yeah. I know. And....” Sheppard responded, motioning with his hands. 

Jack looked up again, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean and?” he spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a child, “I broke one of her sticks.”

Sheppard ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Right. So?”

“Don’t you know what that means?”

“Of course I do," he muttered. “Or, I thought I knew.” Seeing that Jack was still giving him an incredulous look he continued. “She’s going to have to spar with one of the sets of practice sticks.”

Jack just huffed in response.

“What?” Sheppard eyed the other man. “You didn’t hit her with your sticks.” It was a statement, not a question, he would already have known if Teyla had gotten hurt sparring.

“God, no.”

“Then, what am I missing?” Sheppard leaned over to get a better look at what Jack was doing. “Wait, you’re making her new sticks? Why?”

Jack snorted slightly before shaking his head in bewilderment. 

Sheppard looked around the formerly empty room, there were piles and piles of supplies and tools and what looked like random junk that Jack had collected for his work. “Is that a welding torch? The sticks are wood, why do you... wait, actually, how did you...” He frustratedly tugged a hand through his hair. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t know and I don’t want to know. This,” he gestured at the large mess in front of Jack, “is all for Teyla?”

“Yep.”

“All right then, that’s all I need to know.” Sheppard turned to leave.

“But don’t you want to know how I got the...” Jack started to ask.

“No!” 

“Well then, what about the...” Smiling broadly, Jack was teasing Sheppard now.

“No!” Sheppard shouted back, practically fleeing from the room, Jack's laughter echoing behind him.

Early the next morning Sheppard was on his morning run with Ronon when the two of them spotted Teyla standing on a balcony, staring out at the ocean. She didn’t greet them when they ran by.

“What’s going on with Teyla?” Sheppard asked. “She barely noticed us. It’s like, she’s distracted or something.”

Ronon shrugged. They ran in silence for a few moments before Ronon commented, “one of her fighting sticks broke.”

Sheppard looked at Ronon quizzically for a moment. “Oh,” was all he could come up with as a response.

Half a mile later Ronon spoke up. “Don’t worry about Teyla, Sheppard. Jack’s fixing it.” 

During lunch Sheppard asked McKay if he knew about Teyla’s sticks. 

“Her what?” McKay didn’t look up, being too busy trying to balance his laptop on the edge of the table while his tray sitting on his lap.

“The sticks she uses for sparring. I never asked her about them, not where she’d gotten them, or how. I mean, they were obviously important to her, but it never even occurred to me to find out why.”

“Sheppard, I have no idea what you are blithering on about. Genius at work here. I’m busy. Bug me later, okay?”

That night, Sheppard was making his unofficial rounds of the city when he saw Teyla and Jack sparring. She had a new set of sticks, made of a light colored wood, and they flew through the air like they were attached to her arms. She and Jack both had the slightest of smiles on their faces as they fought. Sheppard didn’t interrupt them, just continued on his way down the hall. His team was happy, so he was happy.


End file.
